太上老君說長生益筭妙經

Tàishàng Lǎojūn shuō chángshēng yìsuàn miàojīng 太上老君說長生益筭妙經

Wonderful Scripture on Long Life and the Increase of Tallies, Spoken by the Most High Lord Lǎo

early-Táng Daoist liturgical text in one juàn of ten folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng (DZ 650 / CT 650, 洞神部本文類); opens the series of “nǚ 女” (or “shāng” 傷) prefix-numbered scriptures in the DZ bundle (女一 nǚ yī, “first of the nǚ-series”). The text combines a revelation-frame sermon, an enumeration of the liùjiǎ 六甲 sexagenary generals, a long litany of benedictions, and five numbered and twelve exorcism fú 符 talismans at the end, making it one of the richest surviving short Táng Daoist scriptural-talismanic compilations.

About the work

The scripture opens: “Formerly the Tàishàng Lǎojūn, in the Chánlí 禪黎 country, within the Bìluò tiān 碧落天 (Azure-Downpour Heaven), saw that there were men and women stricken with illness and harried by distress, whose lifespans had not been fulfilled at the reasoned measure, and who were about to be cut off prematurely, their suàn 筭 (life-tallies) not yet full.” With his “other-mind wisdom” (他心智 — a Buddhist loan from paracitta-jñāna), Lǎojūn summons the officials of the Ten Directions, the True Lords of the Five Marchmounts, the Chángshēng Sīmìng 長生司命, and the uncountable spirits of heaven and earth to the Qībǎo liúlí 七寳琉璃 seat, where he reveals the means of rescue. He then commands Dōngjí Chángshēng zhēnjūn 東極長生眞君 to summon the six liùjiǎ 六甲 tally-controlling spirits, each with innumerable retinue and mount, to circulate through the world carrying this scripture, transmitting it to humans in their folly, granting them talismans and registers, and thereby prolonging their years.

The revelation proceeds through a precise register of the six liùjiǎ 六甲 generals and their retinues, each with personal name and functional portfolio:

• Jiǎzǐ jiāngjūn Wáng Wénqīng 甲子將軍王文卿, with 139 subordinates, “gives birth to my tallies, 12,000 of the Way, protects the bodies of persons, shielded by the attainment of the true spirits, settles the heart, removes ills”;
• Jiǎxū jiāngjūn Zhǎn Zǐjiāng 甲戌將軍展子江, 135 subordinates, “gives birth to my tallies, 12,000… removes afflictions within the body, turns back calamity”;
• Jiǎshēn jiāngjūn Hù Wéncháng 甲申將軍扈文長, 131 subordinates, “nourishes my tallies… restores souls and húnpò”;
• Jiǎwǔ jiāngjūn Wèi Shàngqīng 甲午將軍衞上卿, 139 subordinates, “grants my tallies… preserves the body for 120 years”;
• Jiǎchén jiāngjūn Mèng Fēiqīng 甲辰將軍孟非卿, 135 subordinates, “supports my tallies… guards the body from seeing evil”;
• Jiǎyín jiāngjūn Míng Wénzhāng 甲寅將軍明文章, 131 subordinates, “rescues my tallies… averts all evil demons.”

The text then presents a catalogue of benefactors and benedictions (a composite reminiscent of the liturgical jí 偈 genre): “The true scripture gives birth to me, the scriptures support me, the sun and moon illuminate me, the jade radiance reflects me, yīnyáng lengthens me, the four seasons nourish me, the five zhī 芝 shelter me, the five clouds canopy me, the five zhēn 眞 protect me, the six jiǎ 甲 give birth to me, the Five Emperors help me, the five notes make me music, the five arms wing me, the stars and stellar mansions cover me, the true sages shield me, the immortals support me, the yùnǚ 玉女 attend me, the qīnglóng 青龍 leads me, the báihǔ 白虎 flanks me, dukes and marquises love me, lower officials respect me… bow and arrow, blade and troop, bandits and brigands leave me, tigers and wolves, vipers and snakes, insects and beasts shun me, the five poisons and the gǔ 蠱 arts avoid me…”

The text also preserves an important internal dating-clause: “Tàishàng Lǎojūn, with the Tiānshī 天師 [Zhāng Dàolíng 張道陵], in the first year of Hàn’ān 漢安 (142 CE), on the fifth month, rénwǔ 壬午, at Chìshíchéng 赤石城 in Shǔ, broke stone as token and instructed the faithful, saying: ‘When the days of life are completed, the tallies exhausted, the year declining, the month calamitous, you shall wash, burn incense, fast, and hold in mind my shénfú, which shall protect the myriad surnames without deficit for a hundred years.‘” This claim positions the scripture within the Celestial-Masters 天師道 Zhèngyī ménglíng 正一盟威 tradition of Hàn-era revelation — but (per Schmidt) the positioning is pseudo-historical: the real composition is Táng. The Buddhist star-and-demon cosmology is then enumerated: the 七星 seven-star Dipper and its demon-portfolios (tānláng 貪狼 → evil qì; jùmén 巨門 → corpse-afflictions; cúnxīng 存星 → hundred demons; wénqū 文曲 → disputes; liánzhēn 廉貞 → nightmares; wǔqū 武曲 → official cases; pòjūn 破軍 → demons-of-loss; zuǒfǔ dǒuxīng 左輔斗星 → human life-tallies; yòubì dǒuxīng 右弼斗星 → demons and spirits; sāntái xīng 三台星 → human life).

The text closes with five numbered fú talismans — (1) Kāixīn fú 開心符, (2) Yìsuàn fú 益筭符, (3) Hùshēnmìng fú 護身命符, (4) Jīnmùshuǐhuǒtǔ bù xiāngkè fú 金木水火土不相剋符, (5) Zhǔ shēngrén āmǔ sǐguǐ xūhào shénfú 主生人阿姆死鬼虛耗神符 — and twelve apotropaic fú keyed to specific demon-categories (yóuguāng 遊光, shānlín 山林, wǔtǔ 五土, yóuzhǐ tǔqì 遊止土氣, kèsǐ 客死, yùsǐ 獄死, wúgū 無辜, chìshé 赤舌, cíxióng 雌雄, xīngsǐ 腥死, etc.), with the formula jíjí rú lǜlìng 急急如律令 (“quickly, quickly, as the command of the law requires”) closing each subsection.

Prefaces

No preface. The text opens directly with the revelation-frame. The internal Hàn’ān yuán nián 漢安元年 (142 CE) narrative belongs to the textual body and supplies a pseudo-historical terminus a quo — a conventional fiction of Celestial-Masters scriptures — rather than a preface.

Abstract

Hans-Hermann Schmidt’s notice in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004, 1:532, DZ 650, under “2.B.7.a.2 Medium-length Lingbao jīng of the SuíTáng period”) dates the text to “Early Táng (618–907)” on a firm external-citation basis:

There is indirect evidence for the existence of this scripture in the seventh century, in that a Buddhist adaptation of it, Qīqiān Fó shénfú jīng 七千佛神符經, is already listed among the apocrypha in the cataloguing of 695: Dà Zhōu kāndìng zhòngjīng mùlù 大周刊定衆經目錄 15.474a-c. Three scriptures in one juàn each are listed there: Fó shuō yìsuàn jīng 佛說益筭經, Fó shuō qī Fó shénfú jīng 佛說七佛神符經, and Fó shuō yìsuàn shénfú jīng 佛說益筭神符經. A later catalogue, the Kāiyuán shìjiào lù 開元釋教錄 18.677c (dated 730), remarks that all three titles represent one and the same work.

Schmidt adds: “The Buddhist version of this scripture shows many textual parallels (including the fú) with our text. It is, however, partly abridged — the mention of Zhāng Dàolíng 張道陵 is, of course, missing — and the fú are not called Tàishàng shénfú 太上神符 (or Dàdào shénfú 大道神符), but Qīqiān Fó fú 七千佛神符.” The Buddhist version’s adaptational strategy — removing Celestial Masters paraphernalia while retaining the talismanic core — confirms that the Buddhist text is secondary and the Daoist text prior.

The catalog meta gives dynasty: 唐初期 (early Táng), consistent with the TC. The frontmatter brackets notBefore 618 (Táng founding) and notAfter 695 (Dà Zhōu kāndìng zhòngjīng mùlù cataloguing of the Buddhist adaptation, which requires that the Daoist source predate it). The catalog meta lists no author, consistent with the text’s revelation-frame as a direct discourse of Tàishàng Lǎojūn transmitted through Zhāng Dàolíng.

This is one of the most important Táng-era witnesses to the bidirectional scriptural traffic between Daoism and Buddhism (see Zürcher 1980 and Mollier 2008): a Daoist talismanic protection-scripture that, within two generations of its composition, was adapted wholesale as a Buddhist apocryphon under the Qīqiān Fó fú 七千佛神符 name — complete with talismanic drawings. Kristofer Schipper notes this same text (TC 1:516, general introduction to 2.B.7 Lingbao): “scriptures such as 630 [i.e. the present 650] Tàishàng Lǎojūn chángshēng yìsuàn miàojīng have in turn been adapted as Buddhist texts.”

Translations and research

• Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 1:532 (DZ 650, H.-H. Schmidt).
• Mollier, Christine. Buddhism and Taoism Face to Face: Scripture, Ritual, and Iconographic Exchange in Medieval China. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008. Chapter-length discussion of the Yìsuàn / Qīqiān Fó shénfú family as a case study in bidirectional scriptural borrowing.
• Zürcher, Erik. “Buddhist Influence on Early Taoism: A Survey of Scriptural Evidence.” T’oung Pao 66 (1980): 84–147 — for the broader phenomenon.
• Strickmann, Michel. Chinese Magical Medicine. Ed. Bernard Faure. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002 — for the Táng fú talismanic and liùjiǎ register tradition.
• Dà Zhōu kāndìng zhòngjīng mùlù 大周刊定衆經目錄, in Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經, juan 15 — the 695 Buddhist-apocryphal catalogue that supplies the terminus ante quem for the Daoist source.
• Kāiyuán shìjiào lù 開元釋教錄, in Taishō vol. 55, juan 18.677c (dated 730) — confirms the three Buddhist titles as a single work.

Other points of interest

The six liùjiǎ 六甲 generals’ proper names (Wáng Wénqīng, Zhǎn Zǐjiāng, Hù Wéncháng, Wèi Shàngqīng, Mèng Fēiqīng, Míng Wénzhāng) are among the earliest surviving stable onomastic registers for the liùjiǎ shénjiàng 六甲神將 tradition, a protective cosmological scheme that would later be thoroughly elaborated in Sòng ritual Daoism (notably in the Qīngwēi 清微 and Shénxiāo 神霄 Thunder-magic traditions). The list’s exact numerical detail — 139 subordinates for Jiǎzǐ and Jiǎwǔ, 135 for Jiǎxū and Jiǎchén, 131 for Jiǎshēn and Jiǎyín, with the tallies summing to 810 — points to an older numerological system based on a cosmological partition not yet systematised in the later ritual literature.

Links

• Kanseki Repository KR5c0031
• Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), 1:532 — DZ 650 entry (H.-H. Schmidt).
• Dà Zhōu kāndìng zhòngjīng mùlù 大周刊定衆經目錄, CBETA: T.2153.